Meaningless Ponderings
by littledarkangelhippie
Summary: Week Two: Turns out his wife is scared of spiders. (Short stories and drabbles. Shikatema.)
1. Chapter 1

**A.N.****: ****So, I've been thinking of writing short stories for this couple for a long while. The first time I tried it, it ended a bit...disastrously, but I'm hoping, this time around, I can actually do it right. These are somewhat drabble-ish, but not strictly so. Each chapter has little or nothing to do with the last.**

**All you really need to know about these two is that they are together—in one way or another—and that these are just collections of their every day lives and their thoughts pertaining to them (or, you know, more or less.) **

**Disclaimer****: I do not own **_**Naruto**_**.**

Ever since she was fifteen, she visited the Fire Country in order to watch the lilacs bloom. They grew in bundles and clusters near the numerous meadows hidden within the largely extensive forests the land was so famous for. They painted the endless hues of greens and browns with blotches and bursts of purples and whites—soft and delicate and fine. They clung near the trees and gathered about the faint dirt trails like bystanders or watchful crowds. Their perfume was so thick in the air, so palpable and overbearing, she believed a person could grow intoxicated by it.

They were her absolute favorite.

Their petals were velvety smooth and rolled beneath her hesitant touches so nicely she felt something ache within her. They opened up to the sun so eagerly it reminded her, fondly, of herself after a long and frigid winter in the desert. They soaked up and drank in and reflected back the yellow glow seeping between every branch and leaf and twig of the trees above them. They were bright and luminous and smiled back at her as if they, too, missed her just as much as she missed them.

She could spend an entire month lost in them if she could.

But come late autumn, during her next—mandatory—visit, they would shrivel up and wither away to nothing more than browned crisps of what they used to be, crunching beneath her feet mournfully, leaving behind a large and cadaverous, empty carcass of a forest. Darkened, sullen, and morose. Their scent would be long gone, and all that remained was the sharp smell of pine and crusting bark.

She would always come back to them next spring, to tend to them and offer them company—after all, the blooming of the lilacs wasn't the most exciting or inviting thing in the world for most people—and she would always find a restored, renewed hope inside of her when she saw them, waiting for her as they always did and always would.

A silent, unspoken promise in their beauty.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

The first boy she would ever hate gave her a yellow tulip outside of a bead shop.

(She punched him in the jaw.)

It's perfume would be too sour and the petals would blind her eyes—there in the cheerful sun of the outermost fields of his bustling, happy village hidden in the green of the forests.

She would wrinkle her nose at it and scowl at its stiff, ungraceful stem, and secretly wish for something small and purple and velvet-smooth.

(Although for the life of her she can't let go of the flower at all, not until it withers away and curls in on itself in her hands. And she's quietly sad that all flowers do.)

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

As the years passed and she, inevitably, grew older and wiser—but, really, how much could three years do?—the numbers increased, much to her delight.

They overflowed the edges of the trails and spilled across the dirt, out and away from decaying, crumbling tree trunks and caved-in ferns and rose across in waves, up toward the sky, filling her vision and world like nothing—not even fire, not even wind, not even sand or water or shadows or lazy boys –ever could. They stained the backs of her eyelids the longer she stood there staring at them, drenched into her clothes and hair and skin the more she breathed them in, melted into her very flesh the more time spent admiring their sweetness.

And whenever she left them, she had the strangest urge to cry.

She had never known a flower could cut a person so deep.

Not even a sword, not even a knife, not even a slow, lethargic smile could.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

The first boy she would ever consider gave her a purple pansy outside of a tea shop.

(She kicked him in the shins.)

It would bend, unfurl between her fingers—like a note or a fluffy feather—and its petals would flutter and shine like butterfly wings.

But there, there, the pollen powdered her palms and swirled around her like particles of dust.

And she would never admit it, but they had this curious way of making her lips turn up (almost in a smile, except not, because why the hell would she ever smile at a stupid flower like this?)

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

Fire Country summer meant singing crickets and blinking fireflies; colorful fireworks and booming festivals. It meant fluffy clouds seen from open clearings and long days spent in hazy thoughts and slow, drawling conversations passed beneath the rolling quiet.

It meant plump, full moons and blossoming columbine flowers underneath porches and tangled in overgrown grass.

It meant fingers snared deep within her mind and a faint and half-meant insult tumbling from her lips. It meant sandalwood and musk drenched deep into his skin and half-planned compliments mumbled against her shoulder. It meant unexpected bitter sweetness and unresolved conflicts—broken up whenever a purple petal swayed a little more than the others.

Then he whispered, softly so that the breeze could blow it away altogether, "You really are a piece of work," and picked a bloom from beneath the porch and held it up for her to take.

"You're an idiot," she replied easily, and shoved him off the side all at once.

(Cradling the bloom against her heart the entire time.)

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

The only flowers she ever saw in her desert home were always white and springy, hidden deep within the skeletons of long-since dead cacti that leaned away from the wind, as if repelled, and they shone like shells whenever the sun thought to shine on them.

No color to be found in the endless expanse of sand and dirt and clay-colored stone.

She never stopped to smell them. And except for the curious hue of mustard yellow marigold, she never found herself captivated enough to linger.

The small flowers that fought to survive in the dry, merciless land in Wind Country were tough and vivacious. Just like her.

(It was sad, really, that she wasn't as delicate and fragile and pretty like a rose or a lily or a little sprig of tiny lavender buds.)

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

The first boy she would ever want for gave her honeysuckles at their annual parting.

(She flicked his earring.)

They smelled too sweet and their nectar stuck to her skin when she stroked their smooth and stiff petals, and she grasped them too tight and held them too hard, but she felt something twist in her chest as a blue-eyed girl with a sharp smile—who was as delicate and fragile and pretty in ways she _couldn't_ be—told her, in a sing-song tone that grated against her nerves how childish and prudish such flowers were.

(She held them tight all the way home, even when the last petal fell and their stems cut into her palms and desert storms tore their every strand of dainty, helpless beauty away from them.)

(She held them so tight, her blood mingled with its white purity and untouched sweetness.)

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

Winter in Fire Country meant hot tea and knitted scarfs, light snow and soft mittens. It meant steamed sweet buns and honey-coated laughter. It meant swirling cherry blossoms and early picnics. It meant frosted windows and still forests.

It meant black nights and bony trees.

His home was warm and he kept the windows shut tight, a fire burning in the living room where a brick fireplace stood and a whistling kettle announced itself from the kitchen.

His hands were calloused from work, and the skin was flaking from dryness—he let her rub her girly-smelling lotions into his skin whenever she wanted, because, truth be told, he liked the way they smelled, although he'd never admit it aloud.

(They smelled like her, flowery and hot and alive.)

And as she sipped at some tea, with her fingers tangled in his, he spoke very lightly against his mug, sliding his thumb across her knuckle so she would _know_, "You're hard to figure out, you know that?" He dangled a mistletoe near her face when she looked at him, and her eyes were greener than its petals—greener than the leaves during summer and the world he grew to know.

A smirk cracked across her face. "Isn't that poisonous, you moron?" she taunted, and then grasped a handful of his shirt and yanked him toward her.

(And he would never say it aloud, but he liked the way her lips tasted—like sugar and sweetness and everything he never thought they would.)

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

The first boy she would ever love gave her a handful of violets as they watched the clouds together.

The sun was yellow and hot and it reminded her a lot of home, except not, and the grass was long and uncut but she liked the way it poked her skin and tickled her legs as she lied down beside him.

The breeze was gentle and the world was infinite.

And those petals were dark and bright all at the same time and she pressed them against her nose with a grin because, for once, she didn't really _care_.

(She kissed him long and hard, and the flowers all flew away.)

She really didn't care, though.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

And ever since she was fifteen, she would always revisit the lilacs that bloomed in the forests of Fire Country, because they meant life and youth and sweetness and all the things she couldn't name at the time and didn't care to now.

He helped her plant more flowers and came with her every year to water them, even if he complained the whole way there.

He would say, with a slow, lethargic smile, "You could've just _told _me you liked these ones."

And her eloquent and graceful response would always be, "Shut the hell up and water my tulips, you half-wit."

Sometimes he'd kiss her shoulder.

(Sometimes she'd punch him in the gut.)

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

It very suddenly didn't matter that she wasn't delicate or fragile or pretty.

If she were a flower, she'd be blazing violet with needle sharp thorns and poison-tipped petals.

She'd be toxic and dark and broken and stubborn and vivacious.

But of course he would only mumble, in the hazy evenings of Fire Country summers or the frosty mornings of Fire Country winters, against her skin or her hair or even her mouth, "Why the hell does it even matter?"

(She would never admit that he had a point.)

~~...~~X~~...~~

**A.N.****: These chapter's will vary in rating, but I think T is my safest bet. There will be brief cussing, but I refrained from using it here. I want us to get to **_**know **_**each other before I break out my horrible sailor's tongue.**

**So.**

**Review please! Let me know what you think. Criticism is very welcome.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A.N.****: These will be randomly updated. Meaning, whenever I'm inspired, I'll write a chapter. I don't want to strictly set a plot for myself. I'll just become stressed otherwise.**

**Disclaimer****: I do not own **_**Naruto**_**.**

Around the second month of her stay in Water Country, she found a rag doll caught between two stones in a river just a few meters out from the inn she'd chosen to stay at. She'd only pulled the robe about her tightly as she caught sight of it from the window, deciding, against her better judgment, to investigate. The air was cold against her skin and mud slicked her wooden geta, smeared across the sides of her feet and hindered her trek down the rather steep slope toward the stream. She could hardly feel her toes anymore for how numb they became by the time she reached the mossy bank.

Crouched beside the icy waters of the river, which rolled over smooth stones and uneven, hard-packed earth, she found herself somewhat reluctant to reach a hand in to retrieve the doll. Its crystal depths shone in the weak light of dawn, and the forest around her was eerily still. Every instinct in her body hissed at her to return to the safety of the inn as quickly as possible. But she would forever be the irrational, curious mess she'd always been, and what was a little more danger going to do to her?

Just before the current could pull the doll from between the stones, she plunged her hand into the cold, frigid water—her teeth grit, her breath caught, her entire body stiffened—and lifted the doll from the river.

The dress might've been cotton pink at one time, girlish and pretty, but mud and muck and other dark, unfathomable things had soaked in deep within the shapeless, roughened cloth. And the hair might've been yellow, but was reduced to blackened wisps that bent beneath her fingers. Its eyes stared back emotionlessly, as if in shock of being left behind by its owner, and its tiny mouth was drawn in a black-string line; pensive, silent, afraid of what's to come.

A million thoughts passed through her mind as she imagined who the owner might've been—some little girl of six or seven, chestnut waves or coiled pigtails with large, wistful eyes and a small, timid smile—before it came to a harsh, abrupt halt all at once as she saw through unseeing eyes the vermillion curls of smoke-textured hues slither slowly through the clear waters.

It was stained into the dress, the hair, the cotton skin of the little rag doll in her hands—it painted her fingers as it was passed between her palms. It painted the crystalline river until she knew, with absolute certainty, that this was no coincidence.

A scream rose in her throat (_but you're a soldier and soldiers are strong_) and it caught there at the tip of her tongue before she swallowed it back down, hard. Fear and disgust and utter confusion filled her—why, why, _why_ when everything had seemed so _fucking_ peaceful just a minute ago?—and she forced herself up onto her feet.

Duty would always win out. She had to do what she had to do.

This was not a part of her mission.

She dropped the doll.

She turned away.

She went back to sleep.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

A section of the forest was burnt to hell, and the charred remains of what was once a flourishing, manufacturing village was all there was to speak of the damage done.

The smell of melting plastic and scarred soil, scorched iron and blazing wooden homes—and then the ashes, falling down to earth because, that particular day, it decided to snow as well—and this might've only occurred just hours ago.

Dozens of dispatched shinobi surveyed the area for possible information, scoured the remnants of what was—what never would be again—for survivors.

There were none.

(She found a photo of a little girl of five with golden ringlets and sky blue eyes, clutching a rag doll to her chest, smiling so very widely and so very openly—not at all shy like she would've imagined, so _excited _for life and what it may offer, but never will anymore because, because, _because_...)

She sank her teeth into her knuckles and smothered her scream against her flesh.

—_You're a soldier. You're a soldier. You're a—_

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

"This is quite a surprise."

Her fingers twisted deep within the sheets as something powerful and omnipotent shook terribly inside her, violently churning and spinning within her very core. The dark was heavy all around her and she felt herself suffocating the longer she let it weigh down upon her muscles—as if she had the power to stop it, although she knew—_he knew—_she could do no such thing.

She couldn't even speak.

The exhalation of breath was warm and smelled like mint and sweetness and something like spice, and he mumbled, so softly she melted against him—like plastic and wood and iron and _little girls, oh God, why—_"Stop fighting it."

That something pierced deep into her stomach and she choked on her own air. Something burning and wet and horrible spilled from her eyes and suddenly, suddenly she couldn't think. She couldn't stop herself. And it was a terrible realization, then, because all she had was her control, her composure, her cool, her detachment, and here she was—_vulnerable_.

She latched her mouth onto his in quick, harsh kisses, all gnashing teeth against flesh and scraping nails across scalps—and she knew he didn't like it like that but she _couldn't stop herself—_and she was trembling. And she was breaking. And she was losing it.

And she was falling apart.

And she was—

"It was my fault," she rasped against his mouth, burning breaths and searing thoughts, and his eyes were sharp and they _knew everything_, even the things she didn't, never had, never will, never wanted to... "It was my fault. It was my fault. It was—It was... I didn't do anything to help—it wasn't part of my mission—I _should've—_I just..."

"You're only human."

(_You only forget that you are because sometimes you feel like you aren't._)

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

It was normal for shinobi to witness death. It was an occupational hazard on most days where she came from.

Corpses were often found in the middle of the desert, half decayed, withering away like plants did during winter. The flesh rotted and the bodies crumpled in, and, when left out in the sun too long, the eyes popped from the sockets and fried to black and bubbled up on the surface and the stomachs burst out all over the body and ground in guts and browned blood.

And she could take that.

She had been taught to.

Yet she couldn't take the thought of killing a young child.

(Odd how those things worked.)

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

"I need to treat your wounds," he said the next day, standing over her with a medical kit in his hands and a serious expression on his face.

His jet black hair was gathered high in a black rubber band and he had exchanged his pajamas for a gray t-shirt and a black pair of pants. His eyes shone a strange golden color in the sunlight streaming into the room—she became very suddenly aware it was already sundown.

"I slept in the whole day," she stated, but the way his lips pulled straight was all she needed to know: "Two?"

"Almost. The day hasn't let out yet."

She swung her legs off the side of the bed, and pushed him away when he tried to push her back down. "Let me shower. I feel disgusting." Although she hardly made it a step before she nearly fell on her face. His arms wrapped her up before she could, and the argument ended there.

His hands were quick, deft, methodical as they peeled her clothing away from her skin—it stuck to her with sweat and dirt and, _God, that's blood—_and he kept his eyes on her, dust-tinged brown and such dark depths, far too intense for all the feelings shredding through her body all at once. Her clothes crumpled to the ground in stiff, crinkled heaps (she wondered how long it's _really _been), and the air tore through her clenched teeth when his hands, calloused and cool, touched her burning flesh.

The water rose up to her shoulders, her chin, her nose, just before he pulled her back up to pour it over her head; she opened her mouth to suck in air and was met with more water _(drowning)._ Her nails pressed into the ivory of the bathtub for a moment, for a single moment, but his voice soothed her—and it _shouldn't _have, because since when was he ever so kind?—and she felt something (_that same something_) rip across her spine and nerves and muscles and every little fiber in her entire body.

A choked sob escaped her, and she crumpled into herself—_like a corpse, oh God—_and the water around her turned to sticky, slick, hot crimson and her heart was two beats closer to crashing out of her chest and she suddenly felt so cold she could hardly think at all, and—and—and—

(Her hands grasped for a doll she knew was not there.)

"Hey," he mumbled, just as she tore her senses back to the surface. Her fingers were twisted deep into his shirt, and she had pulled him forward, nearly into the tub with her. Her forehead pressed against his, and she noticed, silently, that he smelled like sandalwood and spice, like home and warmth.

Like things she never thought to think about.

"This never happens," she rasped, her arms falling back into the water, letting him lean away. "This never happens to me, I swear..."

"I know that," he sighed, and then reached across her for the sponge, squeezing a dollop of clear soap onto it and letting the—_not red—_water soak into it before lifting one of her arms to clean. "You're tougher than most people I know, and _you_ know that."

His gaze cut her, and she looked away, more than a little ashamed of herself.

"But you're still human," he continued when she didn't speak, moving on to the next arm. "And this happens every now and then. You can't expect to be immune to it."

She smiled to herself spitefully. "I thought I was." Years of building herself up to be a ruthless, inhumane soldier meant nothing when she came running to someone for comfort like a pathetic infant. "Have _you_ ever...?"

The chuckle he let out was enough of an answer, and she felt her smile widen _just _a little. "I find that, times like these, it's best not to be alone."

Her smile fell, her head bowed, her whole world swayed.

_I fucking hate when you're right_.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

"I killed a little kid once," he said as he tended her wounds.

She remained silent.

A clock ticked from somewhere in his house, perhaps reading a few minutes before seven. He dabbed a soaked cotton ball against the cuts and swabbed the thin red lines across her back, a heat following his cool, nimble fingers. She counted in her mind each time his hands lingered, wondering, pondering, and shut her eyes when she realized, slowly, that they never did.

"I don't remember when or where, but I remember how he looked like." He fastened a bandage at her bicep carefully, and then moved on dutifully. Movements practiced, detached. Unfeeling. "The difference between you and me," he murmured near her ear (_a shiver shot down her spine_), "is that I _killed _him. You didn't kill her."

She scoffed, as if he had implied that she was weak (_but maybe you are, and you're just being stubborn again_). "I might as well have."

"But you didn't," he insisted, tightening another bandage about her middle. A dark look passed behind his eyes, and she suddenly wondered if she was speaking to the same person. That sharp glint, that malice, that look on his face...wasn't normal, not for him. "Did you cut her open like I did him? Did you watch her bleed to death?"

His hands paused, his voice faltered; the only indication that he regretted it more than he let on.

"Why'd you do it?" she asked, and her hand snapped out to catch his, stopping him from moving on to the next wound—_how many was that now? Where did she get this many? _"You would never do it unless you had to."

"No," he agreed, kneeling down in front of her. There was that evasive, guarded look on his face, the one he always had when she noticed too much. And she always noticed too much. "I needed to get information, and the kid was getting in the way..." His eyes lowered, dark and bereft and entirely remorseful, glancing away from her. "I didn't have a choice."

She knotted their fingers between them, and watched his gaze move slowly toward their hands, the edge of his lips coming up unwittingly. "Does it honestly make it any better," she asked, her voice apathetic and cold, "that I _did _have a choice?"

The chuckle that left him was all the answer she needed.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

**A.N.****: The horrors of being a shinobi, I suppose...?**

**Anyway, thanks for reading, and please review! It helps a lot.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A.N.****: My fingers are cold. **

**Thank you, guys, for leaving reviews and whatnot. I don't usually do short stories.**

**Disclaimer****: I do not own ****_Naruto_.**

He would tell himself, as he watched his mother storm through the house in all her violent, vicious tendencies, that he would never make the same mistake as his father. That he would never fall in love with such a fierce, terrifying woman.

Silently, he would list away the features he would absolutely and fastidiously avoid when he got older and decided to settle down—because settle down he would, he was sure of it. It was as much a fact as the way that, one day, he would finally beat his father at shogi. One day, yes.

(One day, maybe.)

While he mumbled his questions to his father, flinching as she slammed the door shut from somewhere in the house, he locked away the bits and pieces of what he'd grown up with and what he'd dealt with alongside his most unfortunate father, who slumped back against a kitchen chair and heaved a great, big sigh as if to say, "Here we go again."

He vowed he would not be like his father, in this aspect.

Someone plain, yes, because his mother was pretty—in that classic, elegant way he always found in the tiniest parts that made her up; flowing brown hair he could remember playing with as a small child and wide dark eyes he thought he once saw narrow sweetly at him some vague time ago. And when she smiled—small, brief, snipped smiles—there was something undeniably warm about her, and he thought, for a second or two, that he understood what his father meant.

And then she snapped out some order or another and that moment was gone.

Someone mild-mannered and laid back, much like him, with a pleasant voice and maybe a nice laugh. If she cooked well, all the better, but he liked to think it made no real difference to him. He just wanted to be with someone that wasn't like the woman he had grown up knowing.

He promised himself, over and over and over again, that he would not make the same mistake his father had.

That he would not fall in love with a scary woman.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

The second he saw her—that very first second when his eyes crossed her quickly before it all came crashing down around him in massive heaps of one-part fear and one-part _what the fuck—_he knew (_he knew_) she wasn't the one.

She was _beautiful_, in a completely conventional and then unconventional way—a simple first glance and then the double-take, when you realized that: a) something was off and b) she was absolutely insane.

The flawless, golden complexion she undoubtedly obtained from her desert home—exotic, _different_; and he hadn't realized just how much he _liked _different until right then—and the shining wheat blonde hair; her soft face and curved lips. The confidence, the certainty, the unmovable resolve he saw there, reflecting back at him from the deep green depths of her eyes, a green that reminded him of all the leaves surrounding his home, that made up his entire world. And then her smiles, and then her smooth voice—_silk or water or singing wind twisting over flat land—_and then her utter self-assurance, never shaking, never giving in.

Never falling.

Novel to him, so strange and new and _other _that he found himself instantly intrigued. But he knew (_he knew_) she wasn't the one.

Too beautiful.

Too fiery and bright and untouchable.

And then, and then, and then she was vicious and domineering and a _cluster-fuck of spitfire spiteful explosions of_—_God, she's everything he was and wasn't looking for_.

Her grins, her snarls, her laughter, bouncing and echoing and entirely unforgiving and merciless, and, for some strange reason, he felt a part of him _wanting—_

But he knew, right away, that she wasn't the one.

She could never be the one.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

"Quit zoning out, I'm talking to you," she muttered, tugging at the ends of his hair lightly. The sun filtering through the curtains muted the shine of her skin, and her eyes moved slow in meeting his, lashes fluttering blackness and thin brows furrowing briefly. "Stop staring. It's rude."

"Leave me alone," he grumbled, pulling the blankets up to his chin and putting his back to her.

Her hands were warm and surprisingly soft—a feature gained from lotions and creams and her obsession over maintaining some small, simple aspect of who she could've been had she not become a shinobi—and they trailed across his back, burning paths against his skin. Her breath brushed his ear and he shivered very slightly. "Just listen—you never listen," she sighed, and he could smell something sweet on her tongue.

He wondered, briefly, what it was.

"You were talking about going out to dinner tonight."

Her arms wrapped around him, and he felt a thousand times warmer than any blanket has ever accomplished. His eyes fell shut as her chin found a proper place to rest; right in the crook between his shoulder and neck. Her hair tickled him, soft and wispy and wild, and he could feel the very tips of her lashes gently touch his jaw as she pressed a kiss against his pulse point. "How very sweet of you," she said. "Do you always secretly listen to me?"

He caught one of her hands as it tried to slide between his side and the mattress, chuckling in spite of himself. "Most times, yes."

She hummed, and it shook him to his core—somewhere forgotten inside of him. "Cuddle me, I'm cold."

"Demanding, are we?" He turned on to his back, maneuvering himself about her. It surprised him, often, how much smaller than him she really was. He always forgot—her voice was so loud and her personality could fill an entire village, and then some; so uncontrollably vibrant he often wondered how anyone (_anyone, anyone, even him_) could ever possibly deserve her.

(_Especially him_.)

"Shut up," she mumbled, but her body curled against his snugly and her breaths were deep and slow.

And the sunlight filtering through the curtains was growing brighter, and her skin, he thought, looked like gold.

It looked like fire.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

He swore to himself, constantly, that he would not make the same mistake as his father.

That he would not, under any circumstances, fall for the same trick—so sweet and pretty on the outside but a horrible devil of destruction on the inside.

And he had whispered to himself, watching her snap down her opponents—_his own comrades sometimes, God—_with all the ease of a cloud drifting across the sky, that she was absolutely, positively _not the one_.

But then she smiled.

And her eyes were wide enough to swallow the whole world and her teeth were sharp-tipped and gleamed so dangerously, and her voice was melted honey and her words were sugar-coated threats that rolled across his skin like burning, blistering fire.

And he promised himself, over and over and over again—until it ingrained itself into his mind and painted the backs of his eyes in red—that she would _never _be the one.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

"I made cookies," she commented, tugging off the cooking mitts from her hands and setting them aside on the counter.

"I can see that."

"Don't give me your sass."

"I hope they're edible."

She suddenly spun around, eyes narrowed and lips pressed into a thin line; he tensed as she stomped toward him quickly. A dozen memories of his mother slapping his father spun through his mind, and he suddenly wondered how he ended up here—what happened to all of those promises? All of those plans?—and he expected, in that split second as she closed the space between them, for a harsh, sharp pain in his face and, perhaps, even his ribs. (She's always had an impressive right hook.)

But all she did, with a sardonic quirk of her lips and a dark flash in her deep, deep eyes, was stuff a cookie in his mouth. "Well?" she asked, crossing her arms impatiently as he slowly chewed his way through it.

He swallowed, hard, and wiped the crumbs from his mouth. "How much did you make?"

"Two batches. How does it taste?"

"From scratch?"

"Yes_._ How does it taste?"

"Did you put brown sugar?"

"_Yes_—how does it _fucking_ taste?"

He smiled, gently, and tucked a lock of yellow hair behind her ear carefully—her eyes widened, her lips parted, her cheeks tinged a pretty pink—and let his fingers linger along her delicate jawline. "It tastes great. You should make them again for the baking contest."

She smirked, pressing her hand against the back of his to keep it there. "What, and beat your precious teammate's record?"

"Your baking tastes better. It always has." He rubbed his thumb across her cheek, where the pink deepened slowly. "I never had the heart to tell her. But I always thought so."

"Liar," she snapped, although her smile never left her face—and there was that look in her eyes, that invitation to come closer, pulling him in near... "I can't cook for shit."

His other hand found her hair, cradling the back of her head. "I like your cooking."

"You always complain," she mumbled, and her eyes lowered to his lips when he pressed his forehead against hers.

"That's only 'cause I like the way you look when you're mad."

"You're terrified of me mad."

"Yeah?" His mouth brushed hers lightly, and a sigh left her quickly—sweet like honey and sugar and everything he'd forgotten existed.

"Yeah."

The kiss was slow and languid, barely a whisper of her more violent, vicious tendencies, and her fingers traced his throat, and her heart, he knew, pounded as hard as his. They broke apart when a chiming sounded from the oven, and she pulled the cooking mitts back on to pull another batch of cookies out.

And he suddenly remembered, watching her stick her tongue out as she painstakingly picked the cookies from the foil sheet, why it was he'd broken all of his promises.

Why he'd thrown away everything he had ever built up.

"You're beautiful, you know that?" he asked, reaching past her to snatch another cookie from the previous batch.

She laughed, and it sounded like golden wind chimes—a nice, pleasant laugh. "Get your eyes checked, stupid."

He suddenly remembered why his father had fallen in love with his mother.

~~...~~o*o~~...~~

**A.N.****: What? Yeah, I'm cheesy. What about it?**

**Anyway, please review and thanks for reading!**


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